Among the various humanoid races orcs are the most numerous. They dwell in almost every locality of Fälgorna. As often as not they live in 'peaceful' coexistence with their human and demihuman neighbors. That is they are not necessarily in an open state of warfare with the people who live in the same area they do, but nevertheless, incessantly raid poorly defended settlements and merchant caravans. Most realms allow orcs to enter their cities and towns unmolested, but they are unwelcome guests and treated with disdain.

Orc warrior prince

Orcs view the world in a short-term perspective. They usually see only one side of a problem or argument, their side. They react quickly and ask questions later. Orcish adventurers will almost always be male, because females are viewed as little more than breeding machines and have such low self esteem that they would never have the necessary self-reliance to lead an adventuring life.

Orcish behavior can be summarized as totally unethical. Their rudeness and bawdy sense of humor is as legendary as their manipulative personalities and treachery. They tend to be Lawful Evil in alignment and orcs of other alignments are very rare. They live by the golden rule of orcdom, "Do onto others before they do onto you  especially if they are weaker than you."

Orcs often join adventuring companies with the sole goal of killing their weakened comrades on the journey home and absconding with all the loot.

If orcs hate anything more than elves, it's orcs from other tribes. Tribal membership is all important in the life of an orc. Each orc tribe has distinguishing characteristics and its own tribal dialect. Roll below on Table 2.13 to determine which orcish tribe a character belongs to.

Orcs speak their own tribal dialect and may speak the trade tongue, goblin, hobgoblin, ogre, dwarf, and elf.

Orcs are fierce warriors and can inflict 1d6 points of damage on an opponent in unarmed combat. When fighting within 60 yards of their tribal standard they receive a +1 bonus to hit. Despite their fighting prowess, orcs detest sunlight and receive a -1 penalty when fighting in it.

All orcs have infravision with a range of 60'.

Orcs are capable miners and receive 120 racial skill points which they can use to learn the following skills: Detect sloping passages and Detect new or unusual constructions.

Withered Hand: Dark Forest, use a green and rust red fletching pattern on their arrows; able to brew a sleep poison, Wytherhan, onset time 1d4 rounds, runs course in 1 round, causes sleep for 2d4 turns if a save vs. poison in failed at -2.

Orchish general

Grinning Skull tribal shield

Half-orc shaman

Half-orcs tend to be more human in nature than orcish, still they have inherited many of the less desirable qualities of their orcish ancestors. Orcs can breed with most other races and produce many mongrel offspring. About 10% of the human-orc offspring can pass for human, this is the variety of half-orc that may be played as a PC race.

Half-orcs may speak the Trade Tongue, Orchish, and a human tongue when created. They also have 60' infravision. Half-orcs inherit none of the other traits of the orcish ancestors.

Half-orc PC's may be of any character class available to humans and which are not prohibited to them by low ability scores. Half-orcs may be multi-classed but not dual classed.

Half-orcs receive a +1 bonus to Strength and constitution and a -2 penalty to Charisma. They may be of any alignment, though they tend toward Lawful Evil.